TAKE CONTROL, with Wavecel is a six-part series of articles by one of South Africa’s most experienced skills instructors, Sean Badenhorst. The articles will help you understand key elements of mountain biking better so that you can improve your control when riding. Improved control leads to fewer falls, higher speeds and greater confidence. Part 6 deals with descending.
Paid partnership with Wavecel
Descending is meant to be fun, right? Right! And it is. Mostly. Unfortunately, descending is one of the more difficult things to master on a mountain bike. The main reason for this is that many mountain bikers are afraid of falling, so roll down descents defensively, with incorrect body position and too much braking. Of course you don’t want to avoid your brakes altogether because that’s silly.
As a mountain biker, you have developed a very good understanding of gravity. You fight – and beat – it on the climbs and you appreciate and let it assist you on the descents. In general, most descents should be an opportunity for you to relax and recover, but many actually do the opposite, overwhelmed by fear and stress.
WHAT TO DO
Descending is very much about confidence. If you lack confidence, you’ll be unable to relax and enjoy descents. Forever! You need to understand how best to descend – physically and mentally – and then you need to repeat and repeat and repeat the correct technique, which will gradually help you build your confidence. It’s not something that happens suddenly, so be at peace with that and be ready for a process…
BODY POSITION
When you’re tackling any descent, you need to stand on the pedals as this lowers your centre of gravity and gives you more stability. It also allows you to move around and be proactive – or reactive – when necessary.
You need to look up/ahead at all times, and have loose elbows and knees. You need to be able to pivot your hips constantly as your legs act as large shock absorbers when the surface gets rough. This position is called the attack position, an appropriate name because you want to attack obstacles in mountain biking. Attacking is a positive mindset and far more successful than riding defensively.
TRUST (AND USE) THE BIKE TECH…
Your mountain bike’s strong rims, chunky tyres, highly developed suspension fork and rear shock, frame geometry and frame material are all designed to withstand and conquer bumps, ruts, rocks and drops at speed. You shouldn’t really have any doubts about your bike being capable of descending. It’s you, the rider, that you need to manage. You need to learn to trust all this technology and get to a point where you can relax. It’s easier to say than to do, but it’s very possible and it requires a desire to improve, possibly a skills lesson or two and practice.
…AND A DROPPER POST
Sitting on the saddle is probably the worst thing you can do on descents. It raises your centre of gravity, making you top heavy and vulnerable to crashing. So you need to get used to not sitting on descents. This is covered in detail in Part 3 of this series, here. Not having a dropper seat post means the saddle gets in your way, so you are limited with your body position and will either stop, fall or go really slowly down steep descents. Most mid-to-high end bikes these days come standard with a dropper seatpost. The endurance-racing culture of South Africans means that not all riders use their dropper posts. They never really need to on long distance rides and races. But if you speak to anyone that’s begun to use his/her dropper appropriately, they will confirm that it is life-changing. I wrote this article about dropper seatposts more than two years ago and it is still one of the most popular articles we have ever published.
SUPSENSION
Regardless of the type of descent, it’s best to have your suspension fully open from the top. If you don’t know what’s coming, you want your bike to be able to take any kind of uneven surface or rocks, ruts, roots.
BRAKES
Your human instinct of self-preservation makes you want to go slower on descents. It’s natural. And you really do need to use your brakes on descents, but in a controlled way that guides you down safely, smoothly and, even quite fast. Use both your front and rear brake together, but be sure to feather them, depending on the gradient and surface. If you have hydraulic disc brakes, as most mountain bikes now do, you should be able to use one finger on each brake lever. If you do need more braking force, use the rear brake more and use two fingers on that lever if necessary. You don’t really want to lock up your wheels by braking too hard, so just focus on guiding your bike down safely until you grow in confidence. Then you can find ways of going faster where it’s safer.
To reduce your habit of braking too much, do this: Find an uncomplicated, straightish descent at least 100 metres long. Ideally offroad where there’s no danger of traffic or other trail-users. Go to the top and freewheel down to the bottom. Once you have done it a couple of times, try releasing your brakes completely for the last quarter. Repeat this until you feel confident.
Then, keep repeating the descent, but now release your brakes completely from half way down. Repeat this until you feel confident. Then do the same but release your brakes completely from a quarter of the way down. And, finally, roll down the entire descent without braking at all. Be sure to choose a descent with a safe run-off space.
I find this a great way to boost trust in the bike’s technology, awareness of the physics at play (often subconscious) and build confidence without reliance on brakes.
Now that the key elements of descending have been discussed, let’s look at the main types of descents you are likely to encounter and how to manage them.
GRAVEL ROADS
You have plenty of width to work with, so use it all. Obviously be mindful of possible oncoming traffic, but use the lack of complication on this type of descent to your advantage. Avoid braking unless you have to and even then, brake a bit on your approach to a turn rather than in the turn. If it’s a long descent, you can sit occasionally, but generally, moving your weight off the saddle and onto the pedals is best as you achieve a lower centre of gravity and more stability and control. Be sure to look ahead, the faster you go, the further ahead you should look (I recommend looking 10 metres ahead for every 10kph you’re moving). If the surface is marble-like and sketchy, put more weight over the front wheel to avoid it washing out. But this isn’t a cornering tutorial, more on that over here in Part 4.
JEEP TRACK
The thing with jeep track is that you mostly have two obvious lines you can choose. Once again, looking ahead is essential as this allows you to see what’s coming. There are times on jeep track where you need to switch from one side to the other to avoid ruts or rocks or mud or sand. If you are going fast, this can be tricky and high risk. If it looks like an easy switch, go for it, but if there’s ridges or rocks involved, slow down and rather hold your line on the side you’re on. Roll more slowly through that tricky bit and then leave your brakes again to pick up speed. Some of the worst crashes I have seen have been riders trying to switch from one side of jeep track to the other on a descent.
SINGLETRACK
Riding singletrack on a descent usually means the inclusion of corners. Very seldom do trail-builders just build long, straight sections of singletrack on descents because it simply gives away too much gradient too fast. It’s also a drainage nightmare in the rainy season. They like to ease you down with some turns, regularly they will be tight turns or switchbacks. When it does straighten for a while, you need to be looking ahead and standing on the pedals (pedals level) in the ‘attack position’ soft knees and elbows centered on the bike or with weight slightly forward, depending on the gradient of the slope. We covered descending switchbacks in Part 4 here .
STEEP DOWNS
In mountain biking, descents can be very steep. Not that long ago, we would need to lean quite far back on steep descents because bike frames had aggressive geometry, long stems, narrow bars and no dropper seatposts. But that’s changed and most modern mountain bikes have a more relaxed geometry, shorter stems, wider bars and dropper seatposts. This allows us to attack steep descents with our weight a little back of centre, or even centred and pushing down on the bars. You still need to lean back a bit when it gets steep though, the steeper the descent or section of a descent, the further back you need to shift your weight for stability and poise.
To improve your descending control, immediately, do this:
If you’re relatively competent already, find some short, steepish descents and ride them repeatedly. Each time, think about your body position, your saddle, where you are looking and how you are braking. Also remember to trust the technology on your bike! Do this consistently until you start feeling more and more relaxed. If you can, try follow a more competent rider down so that you can get an idea of their speed and what they do when. Ride with groups that are more skilled than you and ask them to assist you if you have some issues with descents. Most skilled mountain bikers like helping out. The more you ride with better riders, the better you will learn to ride. And usually, following better riders on descents helps you realise that what you thought were your limits, actually aren’t…
If you’re not that competent on a bike, then book a skills lesson with an experienced skills instructor. They will show you exactly how best to descend and will help analyse and improve your weak points. Don’t just book any skills coach though, there are so many these days and I don’t have great confidence in many of them. Email me on sean@treadmtb.co.za and I will recommend some skills coaches in your area that I trust.
Once you have the knowledge of what to do when descending, then make time to practice! It’s not something that most mountain bikers do, but find a descent or two that are mildly challenging to you and ‘session’ them. This is a series of repeats which is a guaranteed way to boost your descending competence – and confidence!
If you missed the first five parts of this series, here’s where you can find them:
Part 1: Intended Direction
Part 2: Controlled Momentum
Part 3: Managed Centre of Gravity
Part 4: Corners
Part 5: Climbing
Wavecel is collapsible cellular structure that lines the inside of the helmet and is exclusive to Bontrager. Wavecel reduces rotational acceleration on impact and has been shown to be more effective than traditional foam helmets at protecting your head from certain types of bicycle falls. More details and video here.
